Friday, August 5, 2016

Bow Polish Review Part 1

I have always had a love affair with nail polish. Even when I was having someone else do my nails I had a larger collection of OPI than my nail tech.
Recently I have been having a scandalous affair with Sally Hansen magnetic polishes. I was amazed at what those colors looked like on my nails and that magnet, oh that magnet did a magical dance with the metal particles in the polish.
Still, I wondered. Is there more? Am I missing out on another magnetic polish that can make my heart beat stronger?
Then I saw some Russian nail art witches. I use the word "witch" in the most highest esteem. Because clearly they can cast spells on those polishes that make them do fabulous things. Bow polish by Dance Legend and (oh I may faint) Masura polish are the ones most commonly used.
Since Masura takes so long to get here from Russia & since I was blessed with a polish gift, I ordered Bow from Color4Nails here in the US.
I ordered six colors. I am going to review 3 of them in this post. Let me start by saying it has been a difficult start to our relationship. My regular polishes have been in a rebellion with me over my lack of use of them and I suspect my Sally Hansen polishes heard I might replace them and threatened the Bow polishes.
Let's start with Revel. It is a coppery shimmery color with flecks of pink and swirls of light golden olive green and rust red. A glorious polish. I fell in love with this one at first sight. However the picture on the online store catalog gave me my first indication that this would not work magic with the magnet. That indication was right.

Let me just say I am still happy, even thrilled with this polish but clearly it isn't much of a magnetic polish. This is over a black base. I pulled all the stops out on this one trying to get it to work.
I painted a thin coat of polish followed by diagonal hatch painting in both directions from top of nail to bottom. I did a 5 second horizontal and a 5 second vertical magnet application. Not much difference. I let dry five minutes then applied a top coat of Sally Hansen Big Shiny Top coat.
While still wet I did a 7 second diagonal and a 5 second side of the nail magnet. Again not much difference.
Here is a picture with a nail charm I was gifted by IG@nailart_elegance

I then moved to Paranoia. I thought this was a shimmery olive green. It looks that way in the bottle. But the base of the polish is a deep blue green. Not teal, blue green. It has flecks of light blue and pink along with a shimmer of copper and olive green. My first application did not go well. I used it over a black base and did the same techniques I had used with Revel. I got a little response but not the "amazing" look I was going for.
Here is the first try with and without a nail charm:

Not willing to give up trying I then applied Paranoia over a clear base coat. I was a little more aggressive with the magnet. I moved it around in different positions, even going in a circle both after the initial application and after the SH Big Shiny Top Coat. Fantabulous! All of the different colors came out. On the ring finger a deep beautiful blue and on the pinky a citriney (is that a word?) green. Here is a single shot and then a side by side comparison with the first try on the left.

The third polish is Sirens. It is described as a deep blue with turquoise shimmers. It should really be described as a deep turquoise with lighter turquoise shimmers. It is glorious. Be warned though. As with all of the turquoisey, tealy colors it stains. Even through a base coat. I applied the color over a clear base coat. I then applied the polish as I had the other two. Oh and then the magnetic wonders started to occur. I could see the change even before the top coat, but after the top coat it was more amazeballs! Light blue, dark blue, mottled blue we have it all. So pretty!

Then I applied some sea themed charms:

And since I had two challenges that involve under the sea themes, I removed those charms and applied a nail decal with some starfish and seashell charms:

A few final notes: Why do I do the cross hatching diagonal painting on the second coat? Because I saw this done on a Masura tips video. I have found it works nicely with the SH polishes too.
Also this polish needs more drying time than others before the top coat is applied and possibly between coats of polish. I did not notice any small bubbles on the polish until I put the top coat on. They seemed to look ok with the way the shimmers were but definitely not something I am thrilled about.
Cost comparison: Amazon had eight Sally Hanson polishes for a flat $15 including S&H and tax. They are now $24.99. The Bow sold on Color4Nails were $10 a piece and if you buy 4 or more polishes shipping is free and there is no tax. I found a discount code on a blog (holly10) which took off 10%. So the total for six polishes was $54.00.
The jury is still out on which ones I am going to continue my mad affair with. I have two red, fucshia and a purple Bows that I will be trying out in the next few days and I will do a review on them in the blog post. I will follow that up with a side by side (as much as possible) comparison between the two brands.

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About Me

I am 55 glorious years old and married to a wonderful man. I have one daughter who lives in Houston and 2 grandsons (ages 12 & 14).
I love traveling locally and chatting with friends.
I am retired and loving it!